https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/S_TOSCAThe principal objective of this course is that you learn about a wide range of theoretical perspectives and research approaches in anthropology which can help you further develop your research project, connect your theoretical frameworks with distinct research approaches and strategies and arrive at a coherent research proposal. You will learn:to appraise the potentials and limitations of assorted theoretical concepts when applied to topical issues;to review anthropological texts which are written from various theoretical perspectives;to be able to see the differences between theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches in anthropology;to compose a clear and creative, theoretically grounded, oral and written argument;to develop a critical and curious aptitude, that is, an eagerness to question both accepted, scientific explanations and prevalent assumptions about phenomena that have been defined as ‘societal problems’ by some actors. As an additional objective, you can explain what is distinctively anthropological about their own argument, taking people’s own interpretations of the world and cultural diversity as starting point of the analysis and assessing the unequal agency various actors have to make the world in accordance with their own ideas and beliefs.In this course six members of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology will present theoretical perspectives and research approaches they use in their research, or they find very inspiring, and share the ways in which they are doing research and fieldwork in particular. Each staff member will be responsible for one week, and thus give two lectures. During the first lecture, the teachers contextualise the readings and demonstrate how they apply theoretical concepts. During the second lecture, the teachers talk about their own approaches to fieldwork and how this is related to their theoretical perspectives . There will be ample time for discussions about the contents of the lectures and literature. The assignments will be designed in such a way that they help you developing your own research plans.Lectures, tutorials.Written assignments.Students need to have attended Diversity, (In)equality and Power (S_DIEP), but they do not necessarily have to have passed it.